


Valentines come and gone

by RocioWrites



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Aromantic Character, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2017-02-14
Packaged: 2018-09-23 18:54:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9671645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RocioWrites/pseuds/RocioWrites
Summary: Romantic love? Not his thing, definitely. And it took time to finally understand it.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shellaura](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shellaura/gifts).



As a kid, Mario thought love was unnecessary and complicated. Don’t get him wrong, he wholeheartedly loved his family and friends, how could he not? They supported him fully.

Now, _romantic love_ was a different matter altogether, it was a messy affair, even as a child he understood so much. He adored his parents for being in love and bringing him to the world, Mario was such a passionate soul after all. But love-- romantic love? Not his thing, definitely.

“You’ll get it when you’re older!” His father would say when he scrunched up his nose at those silly romantic movies he sometimes caught on TV, couples dramatically kissing under the rain.

The girls would always fall for the most ridiculous lines and would confess to the most inconvenient boys who were surely basic jerks once their horny urges had worn out.

“Love is stupid! I don’t want to ever get it!” He would protest again and again. But he would sound petulant and biased like any kid would.

His mother would laugh and kiss his hair and give the remote to his father so he could change channels to some football game Mario wouldn’t want to watch.

*

He didn’t change his mind about the topic. As he grew, romantic love meant nothing to him. People all around celebrated it, making jokes about how Mario was in love with the ball and the sport, letting him be. He could compromise on that and would repeat it sometimes too, a fun explanation as to why he was single, no chick following after him.

After some time, it stopped sitting right with him, it made him vaguely sick.

That wasn’t it, he wasn’t some pervert who got off on football and hated romance. It was just that he didn’t _feel_ it. He simply didn’t.

*

He found sex was pleasant, _that_ he felt. So maybe people were right after all, he just had to find the right person –- woman. _Woman_ , he corrected himself. God forbid he had to be the kind of guy to fight against so many prejudices all at once. He wasn’t strong enough.

He didn’t try men in this regard, it was for the best. He’d rather focus on what was important, his career, his family. He could live single and when the time would come, find his love.

The concept rolled so foreign on his tongue, mind numb.

It just wasn’t right. It wasn’t, it wasn’t -- _he wasn’t right_.

*

Friends got girlfriends and everything was glorious until someone made a mistake, one fight too many and the spell was broken. Ridiculous. Mario had to pat them on the shoulder and remind them he told them so.

“You say that now ‘cause you haven’t found someone yet! You’ll understand once you stop kicking that ball and start being a man!”

He replied nothing that time, friends in misery weren’t good material to practice his sarcasms and diplomatic insults on.

*

Two things happened though. One, he didn’t found someone to fall in love with. And two, he didn’t stop kicking the ball.

Football was his mistress.

He could laugh it off like that. It was better than to admit he was damaged apparently. Because everyone felt love –- _romantic love_ his mind corrected skillfully –- except for him. He didn’t get it, he didn’t feel it, he was getting anxious and incoherently furious about it. What was he doing wrong?

People thought he was a playboy, he had good looks, yes, and was an important professional football player, okay. But that had nothing on him about his shitty lack of romance.

It was stupid, stupid, _stupid_.

Just like romantic love.

*

Finding a girlfriend on his own wasn’t hard. He had the looks after all. And he knew how to treat someone right, silly romantic movies taught him to. The lack of a feeling that was supposed to exist didn’t stop him.

She was cute. She was hot. She was good.

She was _fine_. He didn’t need more than that.

Why would he? Romance was stupid after all. He just needed some company and a lovely model being with him was perfect.

Perfect, perfect, perfect. _Just perfect_.

*

He hid just around the corner, a wall of lockers as cover. He refused, his heart and mind refused to listen to this chatter. Teammates accusing another player of being weird, unnatural. It punched the breath right out of his lungs. Mario expected a string of petty insults about this player’s sexuality, it wouldn’t be his first time listening to someone shout fag angrily. Instead, they laughed and laughed because no one in their right mind could be asexual.

It hit home. If people like him –- who wouldn’t, couldn’t feel love –- existed, then the other face of the coin must exist: people who wouldn’t want sex.

His legs trembled, his whole body shook and he didn’t find the courage in him to go and stop those idiots. They laughed and laughed and he wanted to throw up.

*

Life with a partner wasn’t easy, he soon discovered. He wasn’t sure he liked it yet.

He had to pretend at the best of his capacity, he couldn’t become that man who got taunted for not wanting something _natural_.

Mario needed to pretend to be normal, whatever the fuck that meant.

*

Aromanticism was a thing (just like asexuality). Internet informed him so.

He wouldn’t know what to do with a label like that though.

Romance wasn’t stupid. People shoving romance as the end-all be-all was. They were awful, awful for making him feel useless and broken for so long.

Society was stupid, stupid, stupid. It taught people to be awful to those who didn’t fit.

And _f_ _uck_ , Mario wanted so bad to fit in.

*

Society was messed up.

He heard the rumors and jokes behind Manuel Neuer’s back -- about him being gay. As if that made him less of a person, less of one hell of amazing goalkeeper. It stung, knowing Mario could be next if he didn’t watch his back, if he didn’t keep pretending.

And what for? Why? Just because romantic love was a fucking lie to him.

People were messed up.

*

“You don’t love me.” Incredibly, it wasn’t an accusation.

Mario couldn’t reply to that. And say what? _Internet told me I’m aromantic. I cannot even feel romantic love._

Maybe a pretty lie? _Of course I love you._

He wanted to throw up and vanish from existence. Even if her face was soft and open, inviting him to spill his secrets. He has gone so long like this--

He hated this emotion, when he was put against his own design. He was a deer caught in the headlight, scared and ready to bolt, adrenaline getting him ready to fight or flee.

“Oh, it’s okay.” She said, and it hurt. “I’ll stay as long as you want me.”

It hurt, it hurt, _it hurt_.

How could everyone else be right and he so damn damaged as to not feel love?

_He was messed up._

*

 _It is a process_ \-- a web page told him -- _to get to accept yourself. You are not broken, you are not less worthy of care because of this._

He desperately wanted to believe.

 _You are valid. What you feel is valid. What you don’t feel is valid as well._ \-- He summoned strength to keep reading, heart clenching and feeling so vulnerable and weak. -- _People will say you’re lying and that such a thing doesn’t exist. But you exist and your romantic orientation exists and both are very real._ \-- He was a kid again, making faces at the kissing scene in a romantic movie. He was a man and he couldn’t accept the fact that this was happening to him.

Not broken, just different.

Different, different, _different_.

*

There was a time when he stopped paying attention, he got careless. Enraged at himself for being born like this or unconsciously having chose this.

It didn’t work like that, not now, not ever. But he was above thinking clearly.

It hurt, he hurt, he hurt others surely.

He didn’t know how to deal with this.

Romance was senseless and it didn’t exist for him. He had a beautiful girlfriend all for show. He had an amazing football career. He had so much and yet--

This had to stop.

Him, or society, or the knots in his chest. Something had to stop.

*

Friends got married, Valentines come and gone, rude jokes about other people’s sexuality got told over and over.

Life was _stupid_.

“I don’t love you.” She gasped, shocked. He was one hundred times more startled. “I can’t love you. I-- I can’t love.” There was a sigh and the eternal doubt of whom it came from. “But I’ll still have you. Stay with me, please.”

She smiled. “Okay.”

And he would get to the part where she needed to never bring this up again, always a secret, just silence filling in the gaps. He would get to that eventually. They would work like that.

This was the right step. To stop the nonsensical flow of concern and move forward. No one in this whole world had the right answers or the universal truth. He just had to live. On his own terms, with his own feelings -- or lack of them, mind you.

*

Next time someone made an unsavory joke, he didn’t laugh, he just shot a glare as if to kill those jerks who were laughing.

Why make fun of anyone? Different was good, different was valid. People would never be born damaged. It was difficult to grasp and hard to accept, but everyone was worthy of care, society and its expectations be damned.

He wasn’t born broken, he didn’t choose something that would wound him. There wasn’t unnaturalness amongst human’s conditions, there wasn’t unnaturalness in _him_.

He was just different than most when it came to romantic love.

And Mario was in the process of accepting himself for it. Life could be great either way.


End file.
